Political Affairs of the Heart
272 pages, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Paperback
Release Date:15 Jul 2022
ISBN:9781684484058
Hardcover
Release Date:15 Jul 2022
ISBN:9781684484065
Political Affairs of the Heart
Female Travel Writers, the Sentimental Travelogue, and Revolution, 1775-1800
Bucknell University Press
Richly researched and engagingly written, Political Affairs of the Heart traces the emergence of female sentimental travel writing in late eighteenth-century Britain, and posits its centrality to women’s engagement with national and gender politics. This study examines four travel narratives written by women between 1774 and 1795, convincingly arguing that they effectively deploy the discourse of sensibility to engage with debates around Britain’s national identity during the French and American Revolutions. Van Netten Blimke contends that Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey (1768)—which first introduced sentimental discourse to the travelogue—facilitated women’s gradual inclusion into this previously male-dominated genre, effectively paving the way for women to influence the country’s sociopolitical transformation. These four previously understudied works successfully combine eyewitness authority with the language of sensibility to mount impassioned interventions in their nation’s perception and practice of revolutionary politics, at a time when its national identity was most in flux.
Richly researched and elegantly argued, Political Affairs of the Heart recovers the complex contemporary resonances of eighteenth-century sentimental travel writing and demonstrates emphatically how women used the form to make a variety of interventions in political and moral debate.
Van Netten Blimke reveals the many ways in which women travel writers used the language and tropes of sensibility as they explored the lessons of the world-changing events of the French and American Revolutions. Her lively study will be of interest to anyone working in the eighteenth century as it excavates the complex intellectual milieus represented in these widely underrated books.
In Van Netten Blimke’s impressively researched study, four writers from across the political spectrum use sentimental travel to intervene in debates about colonialism, war, and national or imperial identity, significantly advancing our understanding of women writers’ strategies for navigating gender constraints in a literary genre that women had just recently entered.'
In Van Netten Blimke’s impressively researched study, four writers from across the political spectrum use sentimental travel to intervene in debates about colonialism, war, and national or imperial identity, significantly advancing our understanding of women writers’ strategies for navigating gender constraints in a literary genre that women had just recently entered.'
Van Netten Blimke reveals the many ways in which women travel writers used the language and tropes of sensibility as they explored the lessons of the world-changing events of the French and American Revolutions. Her lively study will be of interest to anyone working in the eighteenth century as it excavates the complex intellectual milieus represented in these widely underrated books.
Richly researched and elegantly argued, Political Affairs of the Heart recovers the complex contemporary resonances of eighteenth-century sentimental travel writing and demonstrates emphatically how women used the form to make a variety of interventions in political and moral debate.
In Political Affairs of the Heart, Van Netten Blimke insightfully analyzes the discursive challenges in women’s travel writing.
LINDA VAN NETTEN BLIMKE is an associate professor of English at Concordia University of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, where she teaches eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. She is the coeditor of Crossing Canada, 1907: Hope Hook’s Diary.
Introduction: Critical Contexts: Eighteenth-Century Women’s Travel Writing
Part One: Mobile Feelings: Mapping the Sentimental Traveler
1 “Altogether of a Different Cast”: The Development of the Sentimental Traveler
Part Two: Divided Sympathies: Female Sentimental Travel Writers and the American Revolution
2 “I Am Sure You Will Share My Feelings”: Janet Schaw’s Journal of a Lady of Quality, Imperial Desire, and the American Revolution
3 The Ties That Bind: Sentimentalizing Colonialism in A Journey to the Highlands of Scotland
Part Three: Sensibility in Distress: Female Sentimental Travel Writers and the French Revolution
4 Revitalizing Sensibility: Mary Morgan’s Defense of Emotional Engagement in A Tour to Milford Haven
5 “A Renovation of Existence”: Helen Maria Williams’s A Tour in Switzerland and the Renewal of Political Vision
Epilogue: “An Affair of the Heart”
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Part One: Mobile Feelings: Mapping the Sentimental Traveler
1 “Altogether of a Different Cast”: The Development of the Sentimental Traveler
Part Two: Divided Sympathies: Female Sentimental Travel Writers and the American Revolution
2 “I Am Sure You Will Share My Feelings”: Janet Schaw’s Journal of a Lady of Quality, Imperial Desire, and the American Revolution
3 The Ties That Bind: Sentimentalizing Colonialism in A Journey to the Highlands of Scotland
Part Three: Sensibility in Distress: Female Sentimental Travel Writers and the French Revolution
4 Revitalizing Sensibility: Mary Morgan’s Defense of Emotional Engagement in A Tour to Milford Haven
5 “A Renovation of Existence”: Helen Maria Williams’s A Tour in Switzerland and the Renewal of Political Vision
Epilogue: “An Affair of the Heart”
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
